OF THE BEAUTIFUL. 75 



actual existence, the only solution of the moral problem. 

 It was not difficult for Schopenhauer to find his philo- 

 sophy of pessimism and quietism confirmed in the teach- 

 ings and precepts of many thinkers, both ancient and 

 modern, heathen and Christian ; notably the philosophy 

 of the Hindus, as laid down in their sacred books, then 

 for the first time made accessible to modern readers by 

 translations, contained a perfect expression and con- 

 firmation of Schopenhauer's views ; nor is he slow in 

 pointing out these striking anticipations of his doctrine. 



It is not difficult to see how Schopenhauer's system 

 lent itself to a happy interpretation of the Beautiful as in 



tion of the 



it appears in nature as well as in art. The World- beautiful in 



nature as 



process, the objectivation of the Will, proceeds by ^. u as in 

 definite stages ; the lowest stage is occupied by the 

 elemental forces of nature, the highest by the intellect 

 of man ; here the Will becomes conscious of its own 

 manifestations, and also of the initial error it committed 

 by going out of itself into the phenomenal world of 

 strife and unrest; it recognises the supreme moral 

 obligation of self-negation and self-annihilation in a 

 voluntary return to the state of rest. The phenomenal 

 world which displays the ascending stages or objectiva- 

 tions of the Will shows everywhere unrest, things and 

 events succeeding each other in endless change, without 

 beginning and without end. But each stage of this 

 development is a lower or higher manifestation of the 

 eternal and changeless essence of things; each stage is 

 the embodiment and manifestation of some idea, some 

 expression of the underlying reality, though in an in- 

 complete form. Schopenhauer here assimilates Plato's 



